Society takes for granted that there are two distinct sexes, with two corresponding ways of expressing gender identity. And we have concocted a range of stereotypes to reinforce the supposed chasms of difference between men and women, boys and girls.
Despite the fact that biologists such as Brown University professor Anne Fausto-Sterling have demonstrated that “nature” itself yields not two distinct sexes but as many as five in a small but still significant number of cases, we still think male or female is something constant and unchanging. Sex is not only something viewed as uncomplicated and self-evident, but masculinity and femininity are tied to one’s birth-assigned sex.

Transsexual and transgendered individuals expose the shortcomings of our narrow categories. Because they trouble this vision of male and female, they have been “socially erased,” to borrow a term from Concordia Professor Viviane Namaste...

As faculty members teaching in the sexual studies minor program at Carleton University, we are not surprised by the comments offered by Charles McVety, president of the Canada Christian College in Toronto in The Globe. [see blog post title, above.] Mr. McVety’s use of the language of pedophilia, and other forms of sexual predation, criminal opportunism and violence within female-specific spaces serves as a perfect example of the pathologization, criminalization and fear-mongering that continues to mark the lives of those within the trans communities.

83 comments:

It sure was an easier world to live in when there were men and women who treated one another by rules that respected La difference. The world being constructed while we all remain silent is a tail wagging the dog insanity world making man and woman into meaningless categories so the several thousand "victims" can demand everybody else change so they will feel better.

"Transsexual and transgendered individuals expose the shortcomings of our narrow categories. Because they trouble this vision of male and female, they have been “socially erased,” to borrow a term from Concordia Professor Viviane Namaste... "

Except don't transgendered people in fact reinforce the narrow categories? Because most of them identify as male or female (The whole point of why they are trying to change their sex). Getting from point a to point b though means that they have to transition from one sex to another using either surgery or hormones or both. until they become their new sex (if adding plastic parts actually makes one a different sex) they are simply in a period of transition. That is not a separate sex.

Amazing that the same academic leftist, feminist, etc..ist thinking that can argue that all sex is rape, women are always truthful about rape, date rape is endemic, can buy into the idea that having random men self ratify their right to stalk girl's bathrooms.

There are obviously multiple ways of expressing gender identity. Sex between two people is a special thing. Sex between five is Olympian.

And we have concocted a range of stereotypes to reinforce the supposed chasms of difference between men and women, boys and girls.

That's because there are a huge range of differences between men and women, boys and girls, despite what the multiculti crowd have been trying to forcefeed us for decades. In fact, they've been at it for so long that the paint isn't rubbing off to expose the truth long hidden...it's peeling off with age.

Actually it's already passed in the house of commons, only the senate can block it now. Canada's senate rarely blocks anything, it's unelected and blocking the house always raises a stink. They may make suggested amendments though.

"Amazing that the same academic leftist, feminist, etc..ist thinking that can argue that all sex is rape, women are always truthful about rape, date rape is endemic, can buy into the idea that having random men self ratify their right to stalk girl's bathrooms."

I hate to break it to the idiot professors but the number of people who engage in "pedophilia, and other forms of sexual predation, criminal opportunism and violence within female-specific spaces" is MUCH larger than the number of people with plumbing other than the two standard models. People with nonstandard plumbing have my sympathy and it would be nice if we can make some effort to accommodate them. But a bone-headed law like this is not the answer.

So to prosecute actual perverts, if this law passes, you'll have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the wanker who sneaks into the girl's bathroom does NOT have an "innate feeling" of being female?

Among other problems, the people who support laws like this have no understanding of the practical realities of the world.

If a genetic, physical male truly identifies as a female and is going through the transgendering process, I'm betting he winds up using the stalls in the ladies room with no problems, because nobody notices. But if some guy with a heavy 5 o'clock shadow and an ill-fitting baggy dress tries it, they get the crap beat out of them for trying to sneak into the girls' room and spy.

The vast, massively enormous percentage of human beings DO come in 2 flavors, male and female. That there are some problems with a very, very, exceedingly small subset of the population does not mean that we must or should rearrange all the rest of us to accommodate them. Such people ARE different from the rest of us. That's an actual, unavoidable fact, not the rest of us just being mean.

Gender identity is the latest fad amongst the PC crowd. My township was crowing how proud it was when it added gender identity protection to its discrimination laws. I suspect it is new product line and a growth industry for sleazbag lawyers and the libruls in power eat it up.

Sex is not only something viewed as uncomplicated and self-evident, but masculinity and femininity are tied to one’s birth-assigned sex.

Sometines things are uncomplicated and self-evident and efforts to prove otherwise are bullshit. Reminds me of a guy I went to high school with who, after several years of therapy during his 30s, decided to have a sex change operation. Now he is a 6' 4" former professional minor league hockey player transexual lesbian. And, they call therapy MENTAL HEALTH treatment. No where is mental health more absent than in the mental health professions.

South African Caster Semenya. She has confused and been confused by people's reactions her whole life. I don't think things are as clear cut as we'd like to believe.

Still, if she's dressed as a woman, and goes into use a stall in the women's room, or dresses as a man and uses a stall in a men's room, how is that a problem? You'd think that someone with an 'innate feeling' of being male or female is going to dress the part.

People like to complain about the hand that has been dealt them. Some expect the Govt to punish the rest of Society for their lousy luck. Maybe punish is the wrong word. Complicate might be better.

I am reminded of a situation down in Scottsdale a year or two ago. A couple of people got banned from one of the clubs there for hanging out in the women's room. Seems that they were claiming to be trannies, were dressed in female attire, but were (still) obviously male, with the beard shadow, male sex organ, etc. They were creeping out all the women there, and given the choice of losing their female crowd (and all the guys trying to meet said female crowd) or a small group of possible trannies, they picked the later.

Apparently, this discrimination will possibly soon be illegal up north there.

I do, to some extent, feel a little sorry for western women. They worked so hard for gender equality, and, then it got extended to gays, and from there to trannies. And, now they lose one of their last sanctuaries from men through that same gender equality.

I don't feel though as sorry as maybe I should, because we men lost our last sanctuaries a generation ago through women's attempts at gender equality.

The transgendered and the transexuals have been "socially erased?" Actually they're bold as brass and all those who dare criticize them or, heaven forbid, joke about them, are being systematically erased. Want to be a career academic or have a media career or in fact have any career dominated by the chattering class? Don't you dare state the obvious -- freaks are freaks.

There is a very easy test of whether you are male or female. It has nothing to do with feelings.

For most of the population, this is true. For a small minority, certainly not. There are people who are genetically neither male nor female and also those who are genetically one or the other yet have opposite (or both) genitalia.

NOBODY MENTION SHOWERS IN A LOCKER ROOM OR ALL HELL WILL BREAK LOOSE ON THIS THREAD. REMEMBER...DON'T MENTION SHOWERS IN GYMS, SCHOOLS, MILITARY, ETC, AND THEIR EFFECT ON INNATE FEELINGS IN THIS THREAD OR THE UNIVERSE AS WE KNOW IT WILL COL

Certainly there are sexual anomalies, such as those that were physically malformed from birth, or have an insensitivity to testosterone for example, but this does not excuse or explain the political agenda we're seeing today.

Transgender is just a very expensive surgical transvestite and deserves as much ridicule, or more.

We just got our official "tier 2" end of Don't Ask briefing yesterday. The major take away is that nothing has changed.

Nothing except that homosexuals are no longer being kicked out or refused admittance to the USMC.

So, we've drastically altered a pretty fundamental part of our society's mores and we announce that nothing has changed.

Soon, we'll be allowing surgical transvestites in the military and announcing that "nothing has changed."

And by that time we'll have to start drafting people because who wants to hang out with that kind of person? Come join the army, lad, and show that you're just as tough as the sissy boy who wears a dress.

Well, we just got done with the argument that openly gay men in the military have every right to shower with straight men, and that this doesn't negatively affect the straight men in any way.

Right?

So this seems the next natural step: Any man that feels like it can go in and shower with women at the YWCA. How does that negatively affect the women? What, they're afraid that they'll be leered at? Grow up!

I'd like to see a defender of the repeal of DADT, like Althouse, give a logically consistent argument against this Canadian bill, if they oppose it.

There are people who are genetically neither male nor female and also those who are genetically one or the other yet have opposite (or both) genitalia.

I would possibly agree to some extent with the later, but question the former. So far, I have seen little evidence that very many trannies have non-standard genetics. Serial rapists, yes. Too many Y chromosomes can apparently be a hazard to society.

I could be mistaken, but I would suggest that the vast majority of trannies, one way or another, have pretty standard sexual genetics. Either XY or XX, with their genetics expressing their original gender.

In any case, the question invariably comes down to the question of whether we want to have obvious males hanging around inside women's restrooms.

I'd just like to know, Palladian, why you get to shower with those to whom you're sexually attracted; while I'm once again dragged down to the local police station in my bathrobe for attempting to do the same thing. Your position seems self-serving.

For most of the population, this is true. For a small minority, certainly not. There are people who are genetically neither male nor female and also those who are genetically one or the other yet have opposite (or both) genitalia.

A teeny tiny minority that is probably not getting any flak for this.

Really, the only people that anybody complains about entering a restroom are very masculine guys. And really if someone is really in the process of switching over genders, and aren’t being overtly creepy, probably no one will say boo when they are in the restroom. But we need to reserve the option of kicking creepy people out of restrooms of the opposite sex.

OK, fair enough. I'm sorry I couldn't make the argument interesting enough to draw you into it. You and I don't disagree on much, to be honest, and when the rare opportunity for a scrap arises, I'm right there with the singlet, headgear, and Crisco, ready to go, because you're one of the best commenters here.

Likewise, Pastafarian. Although I'd normally relish the chance to wrestle in Crisco with a smart, virile straight man, I'm simply "spent" as far as arguing over the subject of public showers and gays.

Personally, I find all communal bathrooms and showers barbaric, and won't use either unless I'm desperate. It's weird to me that people think of a shower or a bathroom as a "sexy" place; for me, they're anti-erection Kryptonite. I prefer copulating on soft surfaces, without the smell of stale urine in the air. I guess I'm old-fashioned that way. I'm also old-fashioned in my belief that external genetalia should be the segregating criterion for public facilities, not the content of your character.

If a man has an 'innate feeling' that he is Louis XIV he'll be considered raving mad and most probably diagnozed with schisophrenia. However, if a man has an 'inner feeling' of being a women, he is just extending our gender perseption? Right, I'm convinced.

Legislation that gives the same kind of protection to trans people as the Canadian bill is now already in force for 40% of the US population.

And has been for up to 35 years.

Number of times a "sexual predator" has even attempted to use it as an excuse? Zero.

None.

Zilch.

Not once. Not in 35 years.

The argument is "well someday.. maybe.. they might. Really. One day. It could. Just because it's never happened doesn't mean it can't, no matter what the lawyers say about it. We can't be too careful".

And that justifies the discrimination that results in the following:

# Respondents were nearly four times more likely to live in extreme poverty, with household income of less than $10,000.# Respondents were twice as likely to be unemployed compared to the population as a whole. Half of those surveyed reported experiencing harassment or other mistreatment in the workplace, and one in four were fired because of their gender identity or expression.# Housing discrimination was also common. 19% reported being refused a home or apartment and 11% reported being evicted because of their gender identity or expression. One in five respondents experienced homelessness because of their gender identity or expression.# An astonishing 41% of respondents reported attempting suicide, compared to only 1.6% of the general population.# Discrimination in health care and poor health outcomes were frequently experienced by respondents. 19% reported being refused care due to bias against transgender or gender-nonconforming people